42. Athena
Athena
"That's all I know, I swear."
Hal sat perched on the edge of his narrow bunk, his knees drawn up nearly to his chest, his usually spiky orange hair flattened on one side.
The room around him contained two sets of bunks bolted to the wall, a low shelf where someone had stacked a handful of dirty plates, and little else.
The spartan decor made the room feel drab and cold, and Hal’s usual dramatic flair seemed to be just as muted.
Or maybe it was the stress of being on an alien warbird that had dimmed his exuberance.
"I believe you," I told him, and I meant it.
Whatever else Hal was—and he could be prone to dramatics and hysteria—he did not have it in him to plot against anyone, let alone the Vandar.
The door chimed before he could respond, and he let out a heavy sigh. "It's busier in here than a shipyard." He stood and pressed his palm to the panel, and the door slid open.
Lettie flounced through first, her blue hair somehow surviving the low doorframe by mere inches, her curves wrapped in the same frilly dress she'd been wearing since Kashara, which now looked distinctly worse for wear.
Vallia followed close behind her, her lavender hair swishing loose around delicate shoulders and her enormous eyes darting around the room before landing on me.
Lettie's face broke into a delighted grin, and she looked me up and down with an expression that made heat rise instantly to my cheeks. "Well, well. Look who it is. You look like you had a much better night than the rest of us, hon."
I tried not to blush but failed spectacularly.
"Why are you in Hal's room?" Vallia asked, tilting her head.
I glanced at Hal, and he glanced back at me, and the brief, loaded silence between us was apparently answer enough for Lettie, whose bright smile dropped away in an instant.
"What's going on?"
I drew in a breath, weighing how much to tell them, before deciding they deserved the truth more than they deserved my caution. "There's a Zagrath battleship closing in on us. Even though the Vandar horde is supposed to be cloaked and invisible to enemy sensors."
Lettie staggered back a step, sinking heavily onto the edge of one of the lower bunks, her bouffant hair smacking against the frame of the bunk above her without seeming to register the impact at all. "They're coming after us?"
"I don't know for certain," I admitted.
“All we know is that the Zagrath have chased down this horde and this ship. Coincidence?” Hal’s eyes bugged out as his gaze pinged from person to person. “I think not.”
At least Hal’s flair for the dramatic hadn’t been extinguished entirely.
Vallia's iridescent lashes fluttered rapidly. "What does that mean?"
I looked between the two women, my stomach twisting as I forced the words out. "It means the explosion in the munitions bay wasn't the end of it. It was only the beginning. And it means someone aboard this ship wants the Zagrath to find us."
Lettie's hand flew to her chest, and she glanced around the small room as if the walls themselves were harboring a traitor. "You don't think it's one of us, do you?"
Vallia reached over and patted her friend's arm, though her own voice trembled as she spoke. "It kind of has to be, doesn't it? None of the Vandar would betray their own ship."
Hal's cheeks flushed a deep, mortified red.
"Well, it wasn't me. I’ve barely left this room since we got here.
" He shuddered, wrapping his arms around his knees.
"This warbird is too frightening to go exploring on my own. Give me a nice, messy theater any day over this terrifying metal monstrosity.”
Lettie and Vallia both glanced around the cramped room and I watched the realization settle over their faces at the same time. Hal was the only one of the three men assigned to the room who was currently in it. There was no sign of the pair who were supposed to be sharing it with him.
“It can't be Vern or Dell," Lettie said quickly, as if saying it fast enough might make it true. "They were locked away in a Zagrath prison. They wouldn't help the people who threw them in there."
I wanted to believe that as much as she did.
Vern had always seemed hapless and eager to please, especially when it came to his older sister.
And Dell had barely spoken two words to me since he'd come aboard. He was quiet and unassuming in a way that made him easy to overlook, but maybe that was the point. Then I circled back to the fact that he’d been a Zagrath prisoner, and he’d never expected to be rescued by the Vandar.
You couldn’t exactly plan to plant a spy if you had no clue they’d get snatched up by your enemy.
“Then that leaves Hatch and Ringo?" I said looking between the two women. "What do we actually know about where they've been, or what they did before they turned up at the theatre a few months ago?"
Lettie's mouth opened, then closed again, and for the first time since I'd known her, she seemed to have nothing at all to say. Did no one know anything about the two men we’d been calling friends?